Forbidden Palace - catch 22

[Ray K]

What is it with corruption? I race all of the way to the Republic in the ancient era and corruption is still killing me!

Unfortunately, the cities with the worst corruption are the ones least able to do anything about it. Since they produce only one "good" shield, it takes forever to build a courthouse or a Forbidden Palace. And after they're built, their effect is not that great.

I really need some help here. How do you build an early empire without being crippled by corruption?

[cort]

Re: Forbidden Palace - catch 22

Originally posted by Ray K
What is it with corruption? I race all of the way to the Republic in the ancient era and corruption is still killing me!

Unfortunately, the cities with the worst corruption are the ones least able to do anything about it. Since they produce only a "good" shield, it's takes forever to build a courthouse or a Forbidden Palace. And after they're built, their effect is not that great.

I really need some help here. How do you build an early empire without being crippled by corruption?

I couldnot find any better solution than to play a Commercial civ..
next; expand your empire around your capital; but that mostly depends on the starting position..

[Ray K]

Re: Re: Forbidden Palace - catch 22

Originally posted by cort


I couldnot find any better solution than to play a Commercial civ..
next; expand your empire around your capital; but that mostly depends on the starting position..

Well, unless I am missing something obvious, this problem is bad enough to qualify as a legitimate bug.

I'd really like to know how the playtesters and game reviewers didn't notice this problem.

[Jason Beaudoin]

I think that corruption should be adjusted in relation to the size of the map. On a small map, or even a normal map, it wouldn't be a problem, but on these huge maps, which everyone seems to be playing on, it is.

I know that the next game I play on, it'll be on a normal size map with 8 players because you don't have to spend so much time and effort expanding. I want to get into the game without having to worry about breaking out in that rush for land.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
I think that corruption should be adjusted in relation to the size of the map. On a small map, or even a normal map, it wouldn't be a problem, but on these huge maps, which everyone seems to be playing on, it is.

Dude, I play only on Tiny maps. If your starting location is not centralized, then your 5 or 6th city loses at least 75% of its production, even if you're a republic.

[cort]

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
I think that corruption should be adjusted in relation to the size of the map. On a small map, or even a normal map, it wouldn't be a problem, but on these huge maps, which everyone seems to be playing on, it is.

I know that the next game I play on, it'll be on a normal size map with 8 players because you don't have to spend so much time and effort expanding. I want to get into the game without having to worry about breaking out in that rush for land.

same for me. one difference; i will use to editor so that 16 civs will be playable on normal sized maps..

[Grumbold]

Can the palace be moved like in previous versions? I'm not suggesting it is perfect, but you might be able to hop your palace over to nearer the problem area (in more than one stage depending on how many cities are intervening and their production rates) and get the courthouse/forbidden city done faster, then hop back again.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Can the palace be moved like in previous versions? I'm not suggesting it is perfect, but you might be able to hop your palace over to nearer the problem area (in more than one stage depending on how many cities are intervening and their production rates) and get the courthouse/forbidden city done faster, then hop back again.

Another 'hack' solution is to build units in a 'good' city and disband them in your corrupt city to build the Courthouse and the Forbidden Palace.

Surely this was not the intended solution for the problem.

[player1]

I have an idea!
Since corruption depends from distance from capitol, what happens when you build ROADS to your new cities?
Does corruption (maybe) goes down?

Maybe Firaxis just typed "one 0" less

[Jared]

Nah. Roads don't help at all, although I hoped they would.

Like Ray K, I hurried to Republic in the hopes of helping with some of that corruption. No such luck.

It's KILLING me...I can't build anything at half my cities, some of them have as much as 90% corruption, resulting in a city with 10 population producing only 1 shield.

This is with a Forbidden Palace as close to the badly effected cities as possible, and The Republic.

[Robert]

I think it's one of the ways to solve the ICS problem.
Don't expand faster then you can mange.

It's exactly as with Civ2 at Deity level. Some people complain that you can never get your people satisfied.
In fact it's easy, but you need to know how.

The corruption thing shows that the game isn't easy !
You need to get used to it and to develop some strategies to avoid corruption that big !

Of course I speak without any civ3 experience (GRRRR EUROPE)
but hey, I have to do something while waiting for civ3

CS

[cort]

Originally posted by Jared
Nah. Roads don't help at all, although I hoped they would.

Like Ray K, I hurried to Republic in the hopes of helping with some of that corruption. No such luck.

It's KILLING me...I can't build anything at half my cities, some of them have as much as 90% corruption, resulting in a city with 10 population producing only 1 shield.

This is with a Forbidden Palace as close to the badly effected cities as possible, and The Republic.

oh well? thats incredible!
i am experiencing as well but not at that level..
at difficulty level 3, on a huge map with 16 civs, my farhest city (~20 tiles) is having %50 corruption, under monarchy. i am the french by the way. i believe being commercial lowers it. but even with the forbidden palace your corruption ratio is incredible. what is your difficulty level by the way?

[Jared]

Just playing on Chieftain.

[player1]

I have an thought. Maybe corruption depend from NUMER of cities and not only distance. So many players are trying to build as many cities as possibile wich, maybe, increases corrupion is other cities.

Anyway if corrupion is to high is some area, don't build other cities nearby, there is no point (you lose more in maintaince & units upkeep, then you get)

And I am not sure, what is an effect of Corthouse, exactly?
(in civ2 was -50% corrup.)

[Ray K]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I think it's one of the ways to solve the ICS problem.
Don't expand faster then you can mange.

It's exactly as with Civ2 at Deity level. Some people complain that you can never get your people satisfied.
In fact it's easy, but you need to know how.

The corruption thing shows that the game isn't easy !
You need to get used to it and to develop some strategies to avoid corruption that big !

Of course I speak without any civ3 experience (GRRRR EUROPE)
but hey, I have to do something while waiting for civ3

CS

Nothing personal, but why are you giving an uninformed opinion on a game you haven't played?

I played Civ1 and Civ2, and corruption in Civ3 is far worse now. There are governments that are supposed to help (Republic), and I've changed to it. I'm playing on a Tiny map with just 6-7 cities, so empire size is not the problem. There are improvements that reduce corruption (Courthouse, Forbidden Palace), but the corrupt cities can't really build them because they are only producing one shield/turn.

There are some weak kludges around the 'building' problem, like building and disbanding units or endlessly planting and cutting down forests, but I can't believe that the game designers intended corruption to be addressed this way.

This does not mean the game is hard. It means that the game is broken.

That is, unless someone who has actually PLAYED the game and gotten around the corruption problem can tell me what I'm doing wrong.